Beautiful Sacrifice (21 page)

The artifact was extraordinary. The wood, clay, and what were probably woven fastenings looked far too new to be as old as her gut said they were. The colorful feathers were frayed and brittle, possibly as old as what they decorated. The band of glyphs that would have wrapped around a priest’s skull were in the style of other finds from Reyes Balam lands.

What Lina could see of the glyphs told of power and prestige, nobility and the jaguar, god-smoke and knowledge. All that was missing was the distinct glyph signifying Kawa’il.

“Celia sold this to you?” Lina asked neutrally.

“She knew it would require a particularly discriminating buyer,” Crutchfeldt said.

His tone said that “discriminating” was another word for “unquestioning.”

Silently Hunter wondered why Crutchfeldt was baiting Lina. Perhaps it was simply because he could. Perhaps he had a more sinister purpose.

Servants moved behind them at the far end of the hallway, cleaning house and calling in soft Spanish to one another about church and children, faithless men and the need for more money.

Hunter hoped no one was armed, but assumed some of the faithless men under discussion worked as guards for their host. As much money as was on display here required guarding. And weapons.

“You haven’t seen this before?” Crutchfeldt asked Lina blandly, referring to the headdress. “Celia assured me it was from Reyes Balam land.”

“I don’t spend much time on the digs there anymore,” Lina replied. “The glyphs are correct for artifacts we’ve found in the past.”

“You’re certain.”

“As I’m sure you know,” Lina said, her smile all teeth, “glyphs are as much individual art as shared cultural meaning. Rather like Chinese calligraphy, in fact. Uniformity wasn’t prized. Elegance and originality were.”

Crutchfeldt tried to say something.

Lina didn’t let him.

“Each artist,” she said, “took commonly understood symbols and raised them to new levels of communication and beauty. Meaning becomes transformed according to the position of a glyph or the choosing of one glyph instead of others that had similar denotations but different connotations. A noble could be subtly mocked by his glyph artisan, yet the skill in execution was itself a compliment to the noble’s ego.”

Hunter wanted to high-five Lina. Crutchfeldt looked like a cat being stroked just right. Praise the artifact, praise the discriminating owner.

Crutchfeldt had an unusual appetite for appreciation.

“I admit I don’t really understand glyphs except at an aesthetic level,” he said, but his confidence belied his words. “The style on that mask is particularly pleasing to me. Celia assures me it is the hallmark of Reyes Balam goods.”

Hunter tried not to think about how prime it would feel to introduce Crutchfeldt’s smug face to the marble floor.

“The surviving priest-kings were blessed with the cream of the surviving artisans,” Lina said. It was her classroom voice, confidently neutral in the face of a student with an agenda.

“And the Reyes Balam family has been blessed with an industrious archaeologist and a politically astute businesswoman,” Crutchfeldt said.

Still digging for something,
Hunter thought, disgusted. But he wasn’t worried about Lina. If she hadn’t lost her temper yet, he doubted she would.

Lina managed a nod that might be misunderstood as gracious. “Celia is an inspiration.”

“Yes, indeed,” Crutchfeldt said. “She understands that there are some collectors who value ownership more than legal hairsplitting in the name of artifacts that belong to a culture and time that predated today’s nations and absurd notions of ‘owning’ antiquity.”

With a sound that could have meant anything, Lina moved farther into the room. Crutchfeldt followed her like a yapping shadow. Hunter was two steps behind both of them, alert to any change in Lina’s demeanor in the face of the abundant, priceless artifacts. But she went through the room with the polite ruthlessness of someone who knew exactly what was in front of her and was looking for something else.

When Hunter finally became certain that none of the missing artifacts were in view, he decided to throw some reality into all the scholarly conversation and self-congratulation.

“If there were certain pieces that you’d heard rumors about,” Hunter asked, “where would you go looking for them?”

Crutchfeldt gave him a measuring look. “What kind of artifacts?”

“Late Terminal Classic. Yucatec,” Hunter said with a trace of impatience, and an accent that could only be described as worldly. “The real deal. Unique and bloody valuable.”

Crutchfeldt blinked and looked at Lina.

She looked back at him.

“Hmmm,” Crutchfeldt said. “Sometimes a collector simply wants a piece that will bind all the other pieces together. Take this mask.” He pointed to a clay mask beautifully inlaid with stone and shell. “This is a contemporary piece, bought and sold as such. Celia found it for me because she knew that I required just such a piece.”

Lina didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “She didn’t mention that she was handling modern art.”

“If she knows one of her very good customers is looking for a specific artifact and hasn’t yet found it on the market, she will sometimes find a modern version made to very exacting standards,” Crutchfeldt said. “The process requires proper tools, proper materials, and very skilled artisans.”

A sense of relief crept through Lina. She had noticed several artifacts in Crutchfeldt’s gallery whose condition was simply too good to be believed. Part of her had feared that her mother had been involved in fraud.

“You’re not alone in filling holes in your collection,” Lina said. “Even in the later days of the Maya empire—and I use the term loosely, for it was less an empire than a culture that changed through time—there were artisans who were specifically commissioned to replicate items hearkening back to the kings of old. Perhaps it was a way to invoke the gods of a more powerful time, before the culture began to unravel.”

“Fake is fake,” Hunter said.

“Even fakes tell us about the culture they came from,” Lina said. “Yet I understand your point. Authentic artifacts are always preferable.”

“So who would you go to for something authentic to add to your collection?” Hunter asked the older man. “Something you’ve heard rumors of but have never seen.”

“Well,” Crutchfeldt said, “Celia Reyes Balam, of course.”

“What if she didn’t have it?” Hunter said. “Where would you go next?”

“If she doesn’t have it,” Crutchfeldt said, “no one does.”

“What if it came up the chain from grave robbers?” Hunter asked casually.

Lina made a startled sound. “Then it would be illegal.”

“Yeah,” he said, without looking away from Crutchfeldt. “So who would be likely to have it and how would you get in touch with them?”

“That’s—” Lina began.

“I’m curious,” Hunter said, not looking at her. “If you aren’t, go sit by the pool or something.”

She didn’t hide her irritation. “Mr. Crutchfeldt might not like the implications of your questions.”

“You insulted?” Hunter asked Crutchfeldt.

“I’m a collector,” the other man said easily. “In order to pursue the avenues you are implying, I’d have to want the item very, very badly. I don’t have many such items, but…”

Hunter and Lina followed Crutchfeldt’s glance to a nearby alcove where a teardrop light illuminated half of what appeared to be a stone knife. It was chipped, dull and unremarkable, broken into three pieces. Yet on closer inspection, the sheer craftsmanship glowed through the haze of time and damage. On one of the blade segments there was a small marking. Hunter looked at it curiously, sensing that he’d seen the sign or something much like it on one of the pieces that Jase had lost.

With a soft sound, Lina edged closer. The broken knife had a sigil on it, a marking that made her pulse spike. The mark was a cluster of four triangles all turned point out, with jagged lines joining them on their longest side.

Four corners joined by lightning.

Kawa’il.

“Where did you find this?” Lina asked tightly.

“If memory serves, it probably wasn’t from a sponsored dig,” Crutchfeldt said, his smile more a hint than a real curve. “It’s from a lowland site in the Yucatan. Post-Classic period. It actually postdates the official end of the Maya civilization, though there were many artisans who kept working with motifs and styles—”

“Yes, I know,” Lina interrupted curtly. “Which site.”

It was a demand, not a question.

“South of Padre,” Crutchfeldt said blandly.

She took a careful breath before she looked at Hunter. “You never wanted to date me. You just wanted to use me.”

He stared back, unreadable.

“I’ll be in the Jeep,” Lina said.

Without another word, she left.

“Sensitive young lady,” Crutchfeldt observed. “It’s that Latin temperament.”

Hunter wanted to roll his eyes. “I haven’t noticed that Latins have the only tempers on earth. If you’re talking temper, I come from Vikings via Genghis Khan.”

For the first time, Crutchfeldt looked at Hunter with real interest. “What do you want?”

“I have a client who wants to acquire artifacts from that period.” Hunter nodded toward the alcove before he added a deliberate echo of Crutchfeldt’s words. “Very, very badly.”

“You should have dated the mother, not the daughter.”

“Celia doesn’t have access to the artifacts,” Hunter said.

“And you think I do.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Hunter reached into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts and pulled out the pictures of the missing artifacts. The photos showed the rubs and creases of careless handling, but the artifacts were quite identifiable.

Curious, Crutchfeldt leaned closer. Hunter yanked back the photos and held them like a poker hand, close to his chest. With an impatient sound, Crutchfeldt plucked one of the photos free.

A mask, shining like a smoking mirror, ringed with glyphs of power and death.

“Kawa’il,” Crutchfeldt breathed. For an instant the avarice of a collector gleamed in his eyes. Then the businessman took over. “What is the provenance?”

“My client wants the artifact,” Hunter said, “not the pedigree.”

“I don’t have either one.”

Hunter had known that the moment Crutchfeldt looked at the photo with the eyes of a man who wanted, not one who already owned.

“Who would?” Hunter asked.

There was a long silence. Then Crutchfeldt sighed. “I rarely give advice, yet…Dr. Taylor’s exquisite appreciation of my collection was very satisfying.”

Hunter waited.

“There are grave robbers on Reyes Balam lands,” Crutchfeldt said. “They take, but they don’t sell to me or anyone I know. Their leader is more ruthless than your Genghis Khan.”

“Who is he?”

“To speak his name is death.” Crutchfeldt smiled thinly and handed over the photo. “I prefer life.”

“Is he Mexican?”

Crutchfeldt nodded.

“Is he called El Maya?”

Crutchfeldt’s eyelids flinched. “Good day, Mr. Kerrigan. You know the way out.”

Hunter wanted to argue, but he knew a losing hand when he held it. With a smooth motion, he pocketed the photos and walked out, leaving Crutchfeldt and his collection behind. The sun seemed unusually hot and vital after the mansion.

Lina was waiting in the Jeep, frowning and biting her lush lower lip.

Hunter got in and started up the engine without a word.

“Well?” she asked after they were beyond the long drive.

“I’m thinking.”

“Think out loud.”

Hunter almost smiled despite the anger and adrenaline racing through him.

To speak his name is death.

He didn’t want Lina anywhere near that kind of danger.

And he didn’t have any choice. Houston hadn’t provided safety for her. They had been followed to the city limits and would have been followed farther if Hunter hadn’t lost the tail. The fact that it was a lone follower had told Hunter that it wasn’t a law enforcement agency breathing down their neck. Even the dumbest cop knew that if the subject was alert, a single tail didn’t get the job done.

“Hunter?”

He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “If I thought it would do any good, I’d turn around and hold Crutchfeldt’s face in the toilet until he talked.”

Lina’s eyes widened in shock. “Did he recognize the photos?”

“As in knowing where they were now? No. But he knew they came from Reyes Balam land.”

“How?” she demanded.

“Same way you did, even when you didn’t want to. A good eye.”

“What did he say?”

“That there are grave robbers on Reyes Balam land.”

She made a low sound. “I was afraid of that.”

“Apparently their leader is a real piece of work. Crutchfeldt was afraid to even say his real name. When I asked if it was El Maya, he invited me to leave.”

Lina’s long lashes lowered and she went back to nibbling on her lip. “Celia would have to know about him, wouldn’t she?”

“You own a lot of land. Rough land. Remote. Tough to get around in. I doubt if anyone could keep track of every acre.”

“But if she’s buying from grave robbers, she’d know.”

Hunter’s hands flexed on the wheel again. He didn’t like any of this, and everything he found out made it worse.

“Crutchfeldt said the grave robbers weren’t selling to anyone he knew.” Hunter’s voice was like his eyes, edgy.

Relief and frustration went through Lina. She was glad to hear that her mother wasn’t trading in black-market artifacts, yet the information didn’t get them any closer to the person who was.

The sounds of the tires and the road and the occasional cry of a seabird filled the Jeep.

“You’re thinking again,” Lina said finally.

Hunter didn’t answer.

“I can’t help if you close me out,” she said.

“I’m trying to decide between taking you to my uncles for protection—”

“No,” Lina cut in. “I don’t want to drag anyone else into this.”

Hunter glanced at her and knew that she was hearing bullets chewing through concrete, seeing Jase’s blood.

“They know how to protect themselves,” Hunter said.